A daily dose of market updates to guide your investment decisions.
May 14, 2026
Chart of the Day
India’s inflation inched up to 3.48% in April 2026 from 3.40% in March, driven by higher food prices after extreme weather damaged crops. Transport costs stayed relatively stable, helped by local oil production limiting the impact of global oil price increases. Sources: Bloomberg, Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
Financial market updates
The USD/PHP exchange rate opened unchanged at 61.48 on Wednesday, despite the higher dollar overnight on suspected light agent supply appearing at the start.
Banks managed fixing demand in anticipation of corporate demand, leading to the pair reaching intraday highs of 61.68 before supply at 61.75 appeared and prompted a round of selling in the market.
The pair initially settled in the 61.60 area before remittances and exporter flows accumulated at this level, pressuring the pair lower heading into lunch.
The USD/PHP exchange rate ultimately closed at 61.38, or 10 centavos lower day-on-day.
The current support levels of USD/PHP are 61.20/30, while the resistance levels are 61.75/62.00.
Higher oil prices and US Treasury yields driven by the US-Iran conflict continued to put pressure on global markets and peso government securities (GS).
Selling was most apparent in 1- to 2-year bonds, whose yields have increased 30 basis points (bps) since the start of the week.
The afternoon saw the USD/PHP exchange rate trend lower from intraday highs, which encouraged some opportunistic buying of 3- to 6-year bonds, with the recently issued FXTN 7-71 (5Y) closing 1.5 bps lower at 7.280%. Still, other bonds in the belly ended 3
Given the lack of near-term local catalysts, peso GS price action will largely be influenced by headlines coming out of the Middle East, as well as moves in the USD/PHP.
Despite elevated bond yields, we remain cautious on buying aggressively as the local macroeconomic backdrop remains unsupportive, given further potential monetary tightening and defensive bids in bond auctions.
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) ended 25.20 points lower at 5,946.78 on Wednesday, as investors digested the results of the MSCI May 2026 Index Review.
Gains in Financials (+0.81%) offered some support, but these were outweighed by weakness in Industrials (-1.64%) and Mining & Oil (-1.29%).
Universal Robina Corp. (+2.98%), BDO Unibank Inc. (+2.95%), Globe Telecom Inc. (+1.76%), SM Investments Corp. (+1.58%), and San Miguel Corp. (+1.23%) were the index leaders.
Meanwhile, Converge Information & Communications Technology Solutions Inc. (-11.15%), DigiPlus Interactive Corp. (-8.18%), ACEN Corp. (-6.59%), Jollibee Foods Corp. (-6.25%), and GT Capital Holdings Inc. (-4.78%)
Value turnover picked up to an elevated PHP 7.34 billion, while foreign investors turned constructive with net inflows reaching PHP 285.05 million.
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